Graphics for College

[roguerower]

I'm looking into buying a laptop for college and have been looking toward FireGL but suddenly had a brain fart and thought that regular Radeon or Geforce would be ok. I'm going into Aerospace/Ocean Engineering. Should I stick with the FireGL for this like CAD and such and have a desktop for gaming or go with Radeon or Geforce?

 

[ddogg]

well it depends how much CAD and other professional software u need to use...if ur a heavy user then i would recommend u get a FireGL or Quadro(the Quadros are much better performers!!)...otherwise a regular geforce or radeon would be fine...
depending on ur budget u could get a 6600GT for ur desktop pc or if u want some more performance u could get x800XL

Edit: get a 6800GT unless ur really into gaming which i doubt u are!! so it would be useless getting one...

 

[BillyBobJoel71]

get a 6800gt for gaming, 6600gt for average stuff or a cheap fx5200 for non gaming and 3d. for heavy cad, get the quadro fx cards.

 

[roguerower]

Thanks for the replies, but I'm looking primarily for the graphics for the laptop.

 

[bersl2]

How much and how intensive graphics are you expecting? I mean, I'm sure that your educational institution would have appropriate hardware; and considering the enormous price premium placed on both the mobile format and the workstation-grade graphics card, a workstation-laptop may not be cost-effective at all.

More information is needed.

 

[roguerower]

I am not looking for a do-it-all GPU, but rather something that will run CAD and Matlab well as well as allow me to play games such as HL2, D3, Far Cry, and some other less graphics intensive games ok.

 

[keeleysam]

In a laptop on the Mac side, a 9700 pro, on the PC side a 6800go

 

[mwmorph]

Originally posted by: keeleysam
In a laptop on the Mac side, a 9700 pro, on the PC side a 6800go

not for any serious cad work. get a firegl. but unfortunately, you have to really choose between work and play. a firegl will take giant hits playing dx games and a geofrce/radeon will take massive hits doing cad/cam work. you need 2 computers my friend.(or that $2000 nvidia quadro, or a biso flash before every time you switch a task)

seriously, no laptop firegl will run doomIII or farcry at acceptalbe framerates just like no geforce go will run cad/cam at acceptable speeds.